In her directorial debut, Greek-French actress Ariane Labed (ATTENBERG, THE LOBSTER) constructs a world that looks naturalistic, but there’s something askew. Everything is just a tad more intense, normality seems permeable, madness is just a fingertip away. The residents and creators of this world are two sisters. September, the older one, is the protector of July in public. When other teenagers bully July and find her “weird,” September comes at them. At home, September is the bully and a symbiotic playmate and closest confidante at the same time. The sisters have their own rules and rituals that shut their mother Sheela out, and they play a game called “September Says:” July has to do whatever September says. And what September says, becomes more and more extreme.

Based on the novel “Sisters” (2020) by Daisy Johnson. Labed tells a story that oscillates between family psychodrama and horror and treats classic horror tropes like everyday occurrences. In one scene, Sheela, who is an artist, stages her two girls like the twins in Kubrick’s THE SHINING, in another, a bowl with worms plays a role. The threatening signs start to pile up after an “incident“ takes place and Sheela moves to Ireland with her family, in a remote house, where September and July orbit each other even more while Sheela drifts into a depression. The horror comes from inside, from within the family itself, but whether the discomfort stems primarily from the solipsistic relationship between the sisters or whether a different kind of horror plays a part, remains vague for a long time.

Hendrike Bake

Translation: Elinor Lewy